BUYERS - WE ARE SHORT SALE SPECIALISTS!

Hire an Agent with Short Sale Experience

Buyers pursue short sales to get a good deal. It’s one strike against you if the listing agent has never handled a short sale, but it’s even worse if your own agent has no experience in that arena. You need an experienced short sale agent.

An agent with experience in short sales will help to expedite your transaction and protect your interests. You don’t want to miss any important detail due to inexperience or find out your transaction is not going to close on time because no one has followed up in a timely manner.

A short sale means the seller’s lender is accepting a discounted payoff to release an existing mortgage. Just because a property is listed with short sale terms does not mean the lender will accept your offer, even if the seller accepts it. You have to be patient as the short sale is worked out with the lender. Some short sales may take up to 90 days or more.

Submit Documentation & Purchase Offer to Lender

Once the seller has accepted your offer, send it to the lender for approval. You do not have a deal until the lender accepts. In addition, the lender will want to see how you will be purchasing the property, and that you have your own loan available and you are pre approved. Our team of experts assist our clients in every step of the transaction.

Millions of Americans now find themselves in a situation where they owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth. The years of 2011-2012 have become dubbed as “the years of short sales.” In the first 6 months of 2012 alone, there were almost 39,000 short sales completed by Fannie Mae.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has very recently announced that there will be new guidelines for mortgage lenders. All programs for short sales will be combined into one program, making it more streamlined. These new rules will let homeowners see much more easily if they qualify for a short sale, and it will allow lenders to have much more flexibility in qualifying people for a short sale.

Highlights Of The New Short Sales Guidelines

Homeowners with mortgages from Freddie Mack or Fannie Mae can do a short sale, even when they are current on their mortgage, as long as they meet the criteria for hardships such as the death of a borrower, divorce, illness or disability or employment transfer.

At closing, homeowners will have the option of making a financial contribution in exchange for not being pursued by the lender for a judgment of deficiency later.

All military personnel who must relocate are eligible for short sale, and under no obligation to financial contribution in order to cover the difference of the sale price of their house and the balance owed.

In previous times, the lenders would often try to negotiate with the homeowner for a higher payment. Under the new guidelines, any subordinate-lien payments must be limited to $6000.00.

Homeowners can receive as much as $3000.00 in relocation assistance in some special circumstances.

Guidelines For Lenders

According to the FHFA, lenders must:

Respond to the short sale offer within 30 days

Provide the borrower with weekly updates

Give the borrower a final decision within 60 days

This consolidated short sale program has created guidelines that will certainly make it easier and smoother for homeowners who have to face the possibility of short selling their home.

Your Myrtle Beach Short Sales Team

JP Real Estate Experts wants you our valued followers to be in the know with what is going on in the news about short sales. Below is an article by Senator Elizabeth Warren on short sales that we thought you would find interesting.

Commentary: FHFA’s Senseless Arm’s-Length Policy on Short Sales

As our nation struggles to emerge from the worst recession in decades, the last thing a government agency should do is make it more difficult for Americans to stay in their homes. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) has been doing.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, millions of homeowners have fallen behind on their mortgages. Many lost their jobs in the crash, while others lived through medical problems and family break ups. Many others had complicated mortgages they didn’t understand, and when monthly payments shot up by hundreds of dollars, they ended up in foreclosure.

While the housing market has generally recovered in many parts of the country, there remain large pockets of people caught with homes that were purchased or refinanced during a bubble that are now deeply underwater. Millions of homeowners have tried to sell their homes, but with big mortgages on the property, they need approval from their lender to engage in a short-sale—selling for less than the outstanding mortgage.

Short sales can make good sense, and private lenders have gone along with them in many cases. But the FHFA – the regulator overseeing the bailed-out housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the financing of about half the country’s outstanding mortgages – has blocked the way.

In some of those short sales, friends, families, or nonprofit organizations are willing to buy the home at fair market value, then work out a rental or re-sale to the family living in it. The mortgage company gets the same amount as in a sale to strangers, but the homeowner has a last-chance to save the family home. This is a win-win for both sides—more money for the mortgage lender and a family that saves their home. But the FHFA flatly refuses these deals. The agency’s so-called “arm’s-length” policy means that it will instead demand that the family be moved out and the home be sold at a lower-priced foreclosure sale.

The FHFA claims that its policy prevents sweetheart insider deals that benefit the homeowners at the expense of Fannie and Freddie. But that makes no sense when the house is sold at market value or when people affiliated with the homeowner put in the highest bid to save the home. In those cases, the identity of the bidder makes no meaningful difference because Fannie and Freddie’s bottom line stays the same. And every time a family stays in a home—rather than being pushed into foreclosure—the neighborhood does better and the overall housing market does better—both of which help the value of all the other mortgages that FHFA holds.

I recently met with Ramon Suero from Dorchester. In 2005, Ramon bought the top unit in a triple-decker—right when the real estate bubble was most inflated. He managed all his payments on time until he lost his job and his wife took off time to care for her sick mother. When he fell behind on the mortgage, Freddie Mac started to foreclose on Ramon and his family, and it refused to work out a modification even after they were both back at work.

The situation was grim, but a non-profit called Boston Community Capital thought the Suero family was a good risk. The group made a cash offer to buy the property at more than its market value for the purpose of selling it back to the family. The non-profit recognized that Ramon and Rosanna could eventually make the payments and were hard-working people who simply caught a bad break.

Following the FHFA’s rigid rule, however, Freddie Mac refused the deal. Instead of doing everything it could to help keep residents in their homes, the FHFA bent over backwards to have the Sueros thrown out. This is exactly the opposite of what should be happening.

The FHFA should eliminate its senseless arm’s-length policy. Instead, it should encourage short sales, especially when doing so will keep responsible homeowners – people able to repay their monthly payments but who had just caught a bad break — in their homes. As a matter of human decency, the Sueros should have the same chance as a stranger to live in the only home their children have ever known.

But if FHFA is unmoved by human decency, it might want to consider hard-headed economics. Each foreclosure increases the chances of a continuing string of more foreclosures in the same neighborhood. Every time the FHFA pushes another home into foreclosure, it drives down the values of nearby properties and further destabilizes the housing market. Those costs are imposed on every neighbor. Now that the US taxpayer is on the hook for guaranteeing most outstanding mortgages, every time FHFA pushes toward a foreclosure rather than a workout with a homeowner, taxpayers are the ultimate losers.

The arm’s-length policy is just one of many examples of how the FHFA has acted against homeowners’ interests and taxpayers’ interests during the time Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco has led the agency. President Obama nominated a permanent director to replace DeMarco back in 2010, but Senate Republicans scuttled the nomination. Now, the Obama Administration is trying once again to replace DeMarco, this time nominating Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to head the agency.

I am hopeful that, under Congressman Watt’s leadership, the FHFA will become the agency it should have been all along: one that cares about keeping struggling families in their homes and one that will help strengthen America’s housing market.

This Commentary probably left you with more unanswered questions than answered questions. Please call our office and an agent will be happy to answer your questions on short sales.

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About Jerry

Jerry Pinkas and his team of Short Sale Experts specialize in Oceanfront resort properties and condos for sale in the Myrtle Beach area. Whether you are a first time buyer or an experienced real estate investor, our team of professional local realtors can help guide you through the home buying process to ensure that you find the perfect condo or family home that fits your needs, personal style, and budget. We work closely with the Golfing communities and Oceanfront resorts of Myrtle Beach, SC to provide you with the most up to date listings. We can assist you with a short sale or help you find just the right investment.